The foregoing discussion is presented solely to provide a better understanding of nature of the problems confronting the art and should not be construed in any way as an admission as to prior art nor should the citation of any reference herein be construed as an admission that such reference constitutes “prior art” to the instant application.
When fingernails or toenails are coated with liquid nail polish, the liquid polish is dried by exposure to the air. While the polish on the nail is left to dry, the nails must not come into contact with any object, or else the nail coat becomes smudged or smeared. The problem of waiting for the polish to dry is accentuated for manicuring or pedicuring with ornamental design because the treatment typically requires at least two steps. A first coat of liquid nail polish is applied to the nails and must dry before the application of any design elements. Likewise, in the case of applying a design via a liquid nail polish, the design elements must also dry before the nail can be used. Such nail treatment clearly requires a great deal of time for the necessary drying.
These problems have been somewhat dissipated by the use of a semi-solid form, or finger strip, nail coat techniques. A finger enamel layer that can be adhesively secured to the nail substantially reduces the time involved to coat or polish the nail. Further, this technique eliminates the accidental contact between the liquefied nail polish and the user's skin.
Nail enamel strips are known in which a pliable nail enamel film is peelably or detachably provided on a substrate. The human nail-shaped pliable nail enamel film has an adhesive layer and one or more nail enamel layers, for example, a top coat layer and a base coat layer. Each enamel layer may have different ingredients depending where the layer is positioned, such as a top layer or a base layer. Other such films have a single nail enamel layer. These nail enamel strips are sealed in an airtight envelope or package to maintain the pliability of the nail enamel film. The package is opened when it is desired to use the product. The nail enamel film is peeled from the substrate and then placed by the user onto a nail. The nail enamel film is sufficiently pliable that it can conform to the contours of a user's nail. After application of the nail enamel film to the user's nail, the nail enamel film is allowed to dry in air to allow residual solvent to evaporate.
Self-adhesive nail enamel strips for fingernails and toenails are also known that have a cross-linked nail enamel layer to provide long-lasting wear and a shiny appearance, without the need of ultraviolet (UV) light curing and, thus, professional assistance. That is, the nail enamel strips include a layer that has a pre-cured, cross-linked polymer as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,586,164, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
The pre-packaged nail enamel strips typically come pre-designed on some form of a transfer sheet, wherein the user must select the design from the sheet and apply it to the fingernail or toenail. Although the pre-packaged nail enamel strips offer convenience and some flexibility to the user in terms of design selection, there exists a need for a fully customizable nail enamel strip. The present invention offers an opportunity for the user to create a design, in addition to selecting a design from a virtually limitless library, and to print the selected design onto a sheet of releasable nail enamel strips on a conventional home printer prior to application.
A nail print apparatus, as disclosed in U.S. Publications No. 2013/0247929 and 2013/0242019, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, is also known in the art. A print head prints a nail design directly onto a nail of a finger inserted into the apparatus. Such an apparatus is not suited for home use. The advantages of the present invention include, but are not limited to, the ability to completely customize and design images at the user's convenience (e.g., without traveling to a nail salon) and print the images using a conventional home printer.
WIPO Publication No. WO2000/010149, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a computer game in which a hand with fingernails is displayed on the computer screen and a user selects a color and/or design from selectable icons to apply to the fingernails. The user then has the option of printing the nail images upon a laminated sheet containing a plurality of nail color cutouts. That publication is limited in the applicability of the system at least because it is a children's game and there is no recognition of user-created fully customizable nail strips. The WO2000/010149 publication does not describe strips of multiple sizes or any system for printing on nail strips of varying size.
Moreover, because nail size varies from person to person, it is impossible to design a single nail enamel strip that will universally or nearly universally fit every nail. To address this problem, conventional pre-packaged nail enamel strips are provided in a variety of sizes for each nail. The obvious problem with this approach is the increased expense involved and the larger packaging required for providing multiple nail strips for each fingernail. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a single sheet of printable nail strips that are adjustable in size, vertically and/or horizontally, to fit virtually any user. It would also be desirable to provide a computer-implemented system for printing on different size nail strips wherein software is configured to receive an identifier which uniquely identifies sheet of nail strips and instructs a home printer to adjust the print area depending on the size of the nail strip.